Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo

This grand still life, which features a cornucopia of ripe fruit, including melons, grapes, apples, pomegranates, peaches, figs, and quines, dates to circa 1680, the mature period of Ruoppolo’s career. The late-seventeenth-century Neapolitan painter almost exclusively produced still lifes, which were highly sought after by contemporary collectors.

Ruoppolo was part of an artistic dynasty in Naples, where several generations of his family worked as professional artists: his father and father-in-law made maiolica, his brother was a maiolica painter, and his nephew was a still-life specialist. Ruoppolo’s still lifes are rooted both in the previous generation of Neapolitan still life painters, including Luca Forte and Giovan Battista Recco, and in the Roman tradition of Baroque still lifes by artists such as Mario Nuzzi and Michelangelo Campidoglio. Another strain of artistic influence on Ruoppolo, especially on his late works, came from the north: in 1675, Abraham Brueghel, the son of Jan Breughel the Younger, moved to Naples. From Brueghel, Ruoppolo adopted the use of larger-format compositions and the inclusion of more extravagant decorative details, like those in the present work.

When this work was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, in 1989, it had been partially overpainted (a woven basket had been added to the composition’s center), which led to its attribution to the Circle of Ruoppolo. Following that sale, the work was cleaned, a restoration that enabled Ruoppolo's full authorship to come to light.